


You Can Tell Me Everything

by feminaexlux



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Gen, LBSC Sprint Challenge Fic, Mild Language, Slice of Life, Thief/Heist AU, code pink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26499490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feminaexlux/pseuds/feminaexlux
Summary: Prompt fills forLBSC Sprint Challenges. All works here willtheoreticallybe written under an hour!
Relationships: Luka Couffaine & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21
Collections: LBSCSprintFicChallenge





	1. Next To You

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge 1!
> 
> _"As long as I'm next to you, I don't care"_

Luka had been laying back on the lounge on the upper deck of the Liberty. He had started strumming and sang along a few bars, not knowing he had an audience that had just been coming on board.

“I’d like an ocean view somewhere. As long as I’m next to you, I don’t care,” he sang.

Marinette stood still a few meters away, listening to the barely audible lyrics of an unfamiliar song. Did Luka make this one himself too? He’d been way more creative recently. Maybe he’d always been creative and had high output, and it had more to do with the fact that Marinette was around to notice it this time?

Juleka barely talked about her brother much, and when Marinette tried to figure out why it turned out that Luka had always just wanted people to judge him for themselves.

Did she know him long enough to be able to get a good picture of who Luka Couffaine really was?

“We need to get outta this town,” he continued singing. Marinette felt a tiny stab of pain. She wouldn’t blame him for feeling like he needed to leave Paris. With Hawkmoth and the consistently weird crap going on, maybe it would be safer elsewhere.

But maybe a part of her didn’t want him to go anywhere…

She should probably let him know she was here. It might be a bit rude to stand around and eavesdrop… “H-Hey Luka?” she called out, stumbling.

The strumming continued but he turned his head and smiled. “Hey there,” he greeted back. “Sorry, didn’t hear you come onboard.”

“No problem–It’s not a problem I-I was being quiet is all,” she laughed nervously. “I’d never heard you sing before! You’re really good!”

He chuckled. “Thanks. I like to leave the singing to Rose, though. She’s much better than I am.” He stopped strumming and sat up, patting the seat next to him. Marinette sat down where he indicated. “I’m also thinking you’re secretly a great singer yourself.”

“Wh-What no, I’m terrible,” Marinette stuttered. “Like you said, leave the singing to Rose!”

He laughed. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. Your voice is pretty… distinct. A really unique quality, you know?”

She blinked back. “Thanks? I think?”

“Anyway. It’s good to see you. What’s up?”

“I needed to return something to Juleka and I got… um, I just noticed you singing and got distracted, I guess?” Luka just smiled again and leaned back, going back to strumming his guitar. “Did you make that song?”

“Mmm, no, not this one. It’s a song I overheard recently, but it’s catchy and I wanted to play it.”

“What’s it called?”

“ _This Town_ ,” he said. “It’s got a good feel to it, even if it’s sad.”

“Can you play it for me?”

He nodded, a slight smirk on his face. “I’ll play you anything you like,” he said easily. He started playing something that was reminding her of… distance and disappointment. He sang about leaving home and not living life in circles. It’d been something that plagued Marinette’s mind at times, that she’d been in an endless loop of Ladybug and Chat Noir fighting Hawkmoth’s akumas and never really progressing anywhere.

Well, there’d been _some_ progressing. More like Hawkmoth had gotten an ally and Marinette lost all of hers, save Chat Noir.

She really missed having more team members to support her. And maybe she needed to think about who else to give out Miraculous to. No one struck her as wise or calm or rational enough, save one. But he’d been outed as Viperion.

Then maybe he’d have to take on another role.

“Marinette?” Luka said gently, bringing her out of her contemplation.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I liked it, I liked the song…” Marinette laughed nervously.

“You seem to have a lot of things on your mind,” Luka said, half a smile on his face. “Did you want to talk about it?”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “No, I think I… I can’t, not right now. But thank you for offering,” she followed up quickly.

“There seems to be a lot on your shoulders,” Luka mentioned casually, looking off to her side and over the river. She wasn’t sure if he found something interesting to look at or not, or if he just wanted to turn his usually intense stare away from her. She’d noticed that if he didn’t think about it he kept his eyes trained on a person when he was very interested in the things they wanted to say, but it usually scared the other person. “I know I’m not one of your closest friends but I’ll listen to anything you want to tell me.”

“I know,” Marinette sighed. “And… thank you for that but… I just _can’t_ right now. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you… I just can’t.”

“Alright, that’s okay.” He made a sweeping gesture over his guitar. “You can play it out if you want to. It helps me sometimes. Words can be pretty hard to get out, but music isn’t.”

Marinette blinked. It’d been a few lessons here and there with Luka, and he’d been a kind and patient teacher. She did understand a little bit about playing the guitar, but… it didn’t come naturally to her like it did for him. Still, that was an interesting exercise. Maybe she’d give it a go. “Okay,” she agreed. “It’ll probably sound terrible though, just saying!”

He smiled in reply. “Play whatever comes through your heart,” he said. “It’ll be amazing, I know it.”

He was always quick to compliment her and it made her blush. “Don’t say I didn’t try to warn you,” she laughed. She took the guitar he proffered her and stretched out her fingers. She pressed her fingertips against a chord she… felt was right. He handed over a pick from his pocket, warm with his body heat. He usually just played with his fingers but she was more comfortable with a pick, and he had remembered that.

She strummed a few simple notes first, trying to remember the hand placements. It ended up being a little off, so she readjusted and played a few more notes. She nodded to herself, strumming a melody she made up on the spot, closing her eyes and feeling the rhythm of her impromptu jam.

It felt like a few seconds later when she opened her eyes, the song having finished. “What did that sound like to you?” Marinette asked. “I don’t even remember what I played,” she chuckled.

He looked over at her hand placements and thought about it for a few seconds. “Sounds… tense. Like there’s too much going on in there,” he said with a smile, tapping her forehead with an index finger. “You know, looking back on it, I guess I’m pushing too hard to try to get you to tell me something. Sorry about that.”

“No, no, it’s alright. I’m glad you’re trying to get me to… um, unload, I guess? I do have a lot of stuff on my mind and… the guitar helped a little bit. I’m glad you offered. Actually, can I keep playing? It felt kind of good.”

“Of course. Take however long you want.”

She kept strumming and it was a couple more minutes until she felt her fingers start to cramp up. Her playing slowed down and she noticed that her fingertips were throbbing. “Oh, I think I have to stop,” she sighed.

He took her hands and massaged them, focusing on being gentle with her fingertips. “You do a lot with these hands.”

“Yep. I stabbed myself with my needle only 4 times today,” Marinette rolled her eyes. “It’s a new record.”

“Thanks for playing along. I usually have to say things through my guitar, so it was one way I knew to let you talk without having to say anything, you know? Sometimes people don’t understand me, but that’s alright. It’s more about the practice of letting my feelings be heard more than be understood.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Marinette agreed. “It was a great idea. I’d like to do it again, but apparently I need to start building up some tolerance first.”

“I took up a lot of your time. Did you need to talk with Juleka?”

“Oh! Oh shoot, yeah, I just wanted to drop something off. I got distracted… but…” Marinette looked around. “You know, that song I heard you playing when I came on board?” Luka nodded. “I hope you don’t mind me saying please don’t leave ‘this town’ any time soon…”

“I wasn’t planning on it. Even still a little bit of time before university.” He had a small half-smile on his face. “Did you think I’d leave without telling you?”

“Ah, um, just… well, I’m glad I got to know you as a f-friend, and it’d suck if we didn’t get to talk anymore,” Marinette said, drawing her foot back and tapping her toe point against the wooden slats as a nervous tick. She had wanted to say more about missing him if he did go but that seemed a little self-indulgent. “Anyway, th-thanks for the um. Break?” She laughed nervously.

“I’ll still be here if you want to hang out some more,” he said over his shoulder, leaning back into his chair when Marinette started moving away. “If not, see you later.”

Marinette ran down to the main cabin and dropped off the new lace gloves for Juleka, who had Rose over as well. The other girls both cooed over it (well, it’d been mostly Rose cooing) and thanked Marinette for her hard work. Marinette was heading back out when she saw the blue tips of Luka’s hair peeking out past the canvas backing of the lounge chair he was in.

She didn’t want to live her life in circles, and she’d be circling if she just went home right now. She decided to sit back down next to Luka. “Hey,” she said lightly, her heart beating fast. “I wanted to hang out next to you for a while.”


	2. Dragon, Viper, Tiger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU sprint challenge: Heist/thief AU
> 
> I did write most of this in an hour but it took a lot of editing to get it to this state :p

Viper was sometimes glad he had a longer running gait than the woman on his tail only a few meters behind. He put his long legs to use and leapt up onto a couple of filing cabinets, scrambled up to the bare industrial support beams of the so called modern office building he’d broken into, and jumped over the dividing wall via the exposed ceiling.

 _Post-Modern_ styled offices just lent themselves so well to the good old B&E.

The wiring crisscrossing through the exposed ceiling allowed him to occasionally cut the telecommunication lines in his hasty exit, which was great in trying to prevent any of the security cameras from tracking him. If he also took out the internet lines that was just an added bonus, since that’d probably slow down anyone trying to access the proprietary blueprint he pilfered. He just needed to buy some time.

He probably could have gotten out a few minutes ago since he already had the memcube in his pocket, but this was really the only opportunity he had to see Officer MDC in action. Oh, nice, there she was, waiting for him in her combat stance at his specified exit point. Even at 5 foot nothing she’d landed him on his ass waaaay too many times, but honestly he loved the challenge of facing her. She always had new tricks up her sleeve.

But so did he, with some of the info that Tiger kept leaving him. Like, for instance, even if MDC had gotten the EMP disruption lace installed in her gloves, it could easily be counteracted and redirected by the additional aluminum alloy mesh Dragon had added as the inner lining to his wetware, so the memcube wouldn’t be completely fried if MDC did manage to land a hit (and she usually did). The only problem was trying to find where to ground the pulse… But the priority order was, as ever, keeping his identity safe, then getting the payload, then trying to escape unscathed. Paris PD’s _Special Circumstances_ wasn’t ever going to figure out his identity (unless he died), nor would they get to know that the same general producer for their own tech was his _boss_ (unless he died).

Viper didn’t relish the idea of dying, so he’d been doing his best at avoiding that particular outcome. He’d done well so far, even if he did come out of MDC encounters with more bruises and scars than when he went in. He had landed in front of Marinette and smiled. She rolled her eyes at him. And before he knew it, she had launched herself at him with her classic opener: a roundhouse kick to his solar plexus.

* * *

Viper slid underneath the food truck and unlatched a hidden panel, hauling himself through the opening feet first as quietly as he could. He toed the hatch closed behind him but caught it with his fingers before it made impact. He couldn’t give up the game now by being _loud_ , that’d be so, so lame. He heard the gravel get scraped below his temporary entombment and he knew it was Marinette. She felt at the truck’s undercarriage and probed for any particular weaknesses or different materials and he heard her muffled voice as she worked with her TIKKI AI to scan any infrared signals and find any potential structural modifications done to the vehicle.

 _Here’s to hoping that Markov did its job correctly_ , he thought. Otherwise they’d be out of a job… and a food truck.

A few minutes later he heard her curse and slam an open palm against the undercarriage in frustration. “I know you’re in here, Viper!” she yelled.

“Ma’am?” He heard another voice chime in. “Why are you under our truck?”

* * *

A very cramped 3 hours later after a thorough inspection and nearly complete teardown of the food truck, Viper finally popped the floor panel and took in some fresh air. Well, relatively fresh, it smelled like greasy food all around him. The truck was already on the highway, having been released from the PD’s temporary impounding for being present at the scene and potentially housing a wanted criminal. The scans came up with nothing, the truck’s workers came up clean through the ID system, the truck’s visit and movements were tracked and scheduled and above board.

The actual food truck owners were unaware of his presence, which was just the way he liked it. He stretched his legs out a bit after being folded up into such a tiny space for so long. It was the sole disadvantage of having long legs, but he was the best in class at his job for all the contortion required. Plus he wasn’t claustrophobic like Tiger was. Speaking of… he checked his watch.

ur late, asshole  
cg again? u simp  
special 4u 0xdeadbeef

Oooof course. He could always count on his sister for ribbing on his infatuation with _Cafe Girl_ , their codename for Marinette. He took one last relatively fresh breath of air and went back into hiding, sealing the latch shut. He listened for the engine knock signature: _4, 5, 1, 4, 2, 5, 5, 6_ , opened the bottom panel, dropped onto the street with his camouflage on, and kicked the panel closed before the truck took off. A bus drove over him and he hitched a ride, holding on underneath for 4 blocks, then rolled into the gutter drain.

* * *

It was a pretty quiet evening at Cafe Orriko, a cozy little cafe that had some steadfast regulars. One of Luka’s favorite hangouts due to the owners letting him lounge around and play his acoustic without complaint. There’d been another reason Luka loved this particular cafe, though.

Nathaniel heard the door chime and looked up, smiling at the newcomer. “Hey welcome to–oh hey Mar–oh shit _MARC WE HAVE A CODE PINK!_ ” There was a hastily tossed pillow from Marc that Nathaniel covered with a tea towel and passed to Marinette. She pulled up the pillow to her face and screamed into it for a good 20 seconds. Nath grimaced. “Bad day?”

She lowered the pillow. “Stupid _fucking_ Viper I swear I will rip him in half and tear him to _fucking shreds_ once I finally get my hands on him!”

Luka chuckled, having stopped playing his guitar when he noticed that Marinette had come in. “Careful, sounds like he might like that,” he winked.

“Uuuuugh,” Marinette groaned. “Thank you, Nath. Just… just gimme my usual, please.” She looked pretty dejected this time, handing back the pillow and tea towel, walking to Luka’s couch, and plopping down next to him. “Please, Luka, could you play me something soothing?”

“Anything for you,” he said, starting up an easy tune. “I know you can’t talk a lot about your work, but… what went wrong today?”

“Nnng, just… just I _knew_ where he was and we _still_ didn’t get him. He’s like a fucking ghost, he just… disappears! Poof!” She usually discussed what was already covered on the nightly news broadcasts, just to be safe.

“Then he’s pretty good,” Luka said neutrally enough, but hid a smirk behind a cough when Marinette gave him the stink eye.

“He only needs to fail once,” Marinette huffed. “He can’t always have luck on his side.” Marc came by with her salted caramel hot chocolate. “Thanks, Marc,” she sighed, relaxing a little bit as she took a sip of the steaming hot drink.

Luka set a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “You’ll get him one day, I know it.”

“I'd still have my work cut out for me. I have to find the Dragon after him,” Marinette groaned again. “And Adrien’s still obsessed with that stupid Fencer lady so he’s no help.” Marinette shut her eyes tight and shook her head. “But enough about that. How are you, Luka? I’m glad I was able to run into you today.”

Luka wasn’t going to mention that she’d already run into him earlier as the one and only Viper. “It was going alright, but it’s better now that you’re here,” he smiled. Marinette blushed a little and smiled back, nudging his shoulder with hers. “Sorry about your rough day though,” he added quickly.

Marinette shrugged. “It’s work. It’s… it’s so _weird_ what the Syndicate goes for, it’s not even like… anything really valuable? I swear they’re doing it just to mess with us and wreak havoc.”

“You haven’t figured out a pattern?” Luka asked. Marinette made a zipping motion across her mouth. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

She shrugged again. “No more talk about work, please. I’d just… like to hear you play, if that’s alright?”

“Yeah, no problem,” he chuckled.

She closed her eyes as he started playing the guitar again, something soft and pleasant that reminded him of her. She leaned her head against his shoulder while he played and he felt his heart beating faster.

One day, when the jig was up, he’d love to take her out for dinner. Assuming, of course, that he hadn’t been torn to pieces by her hands.


End file.
